Sexual Orientation and the Law Blog

Tobias Wolff: support the Olson/Boies challenge to Prop 8

Professor Tobias Wolff argues at Huffington Post that advocates for marriage equality need to get behind the federal challenge to Prop 8 filed by high-profile attorneys Ted Olson and David Boies:

When the Olson and Boies team first filed their federal lawsuit, advocates and other leading national voices raised some questions about timing and strategy. It was important to talk these questions through. Any high-stakes lawsuit requires a careful weighing of benefits and risks, especially one that might ultimately wind up in the Supreme Court of the United States. But that die has been cast. Now, it is time for an all-hands-on-deck approach to this important effort.

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Conservative youth group loses bid to sue university over military recruiting

Our colleague Steve Schwinn at Con Law Prof Blog reports:

A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit ruled last Friday that Young America's Foundation (or "YAF"), a group "committed to ensuring that young Americans understand and are inspired by . . . the importance of a strong national defense," lacked standing to sue to compel the Secretary of Defense to withhold funds from the University of California Santa Cruz under the Solomon Amendment.  YAF argued that protesters at UCSC prevented or disrupted military recruiting on campus.

More here.

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New report blames Washington gay activists for dropping the ball on DADT

Politico reports:

A report due out later today from the Palm Center, a California think tank working to end the ban on gays in the military, blames Washington gay rights activists and their allies in Congress for dropping the ball on repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

The new report, A Self-Inflicted Wound: How and Why Gays Give the White House a Free Pass on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,”  was written by Palm Center director and political scientist Aaron Belkin.

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Marriage equality forces in California mull strategy to overturn Prop 8

2010 or 2012?  That's the main issue confronting Californians who want to put the issue of marriage equality back on the ballot and overturn Prop 8. 

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Controversial prof cancels visiting appointment at NYU Law

Li-ann Thio, the "human rights" professor who sparked controversy with her disparaging remarks about homosexuality, apparently has canceled her plans to serve as a visiting professor at NYU Law School.

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Is hate-crime law a potential tool for abuse?

Gail Heriot, a law professor at the University of San Diego and member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, writes in the Philadelphia Inquirer that federal hate crime legislation making its way through Congress "is an exercise in political grandstanding" and a potential tool for abuse by prosecutors.  She adds:

Our criminal-justice system is designed to err on the side of acquittal, which helps ensure that the innocent remain free. The wholesale federalization of crime - of which the vague and misleading hate-crimes proposal is a prime example - is a threat to that principle.

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WashPost calls for activism to end DADT

The Washington Post editorializes that an end to Don't Ask, Don't Tell will require voter activism:

Gay rights activists are right to hold Mr. Obama to his promise to overturn the ban. But they are wrong if they think he isn't trying. The president has met at least twice with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to tell them that he wanted the ban lifted. This month, the Pentagon announced that its general counsel was reviewing the "don't ask, don't tell policy," and Adm. Mullen acknowledged discussing with his staff how he might implement a change in policy. This is the necessary work to get military support for allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly, as they do in 24 countries, including Israel and Great Britain.

What is also necessary is that the activism aimed at Mr. Obama also be directed at Congress. Mr. Murphy has started http://www.letthemserve.com/ to harness that grass-roots ire to get more House colleagues to support his bill. As Mr. Murphy told us, "You can sit, bitch and moan, or you can bring about the change in policy our country needs." A majority of Americans believe that gay men and lesbians should serve openly in the military. It's time they got to work to help get it done.

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Pew Forum issues new report on same-sex marriage

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has issued a report sketching the history of the same-sex marriage debate in the U.S.  Additional resources are available on the Forum's gay marriage page.

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Navigating a sea of gay lawsuits over marriage

Until recently, the real litigation action over same-sex marriage was in state courts.  Groups like Lambda Legal, GLAAD, and the ACLU were careful to bring suits articulating only state-law theories, not federal constitutional claims.  But that has changed, and the newspaper Southern Voice has a guide for the bewildered through the multiple suits recently filed in federal courts challenging discrimination against same-sex couples in the ability to marry or to have their existing marriages recognized.

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Visiting anti-gay human rights law prof causes stir at NYU

Brian Leiter reports on the controversy over Li-ann Thio, a Singapore professor who will be teaching human rights law at NYU this fall, who is captured on video arguing at length against the decriminalization of homosexuality.  An update on her response to critics appears here.

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Sotomayor mostly mum on gay marriage

She got one question on the topic in her hearing, and her answer, as on most things, was "evasive but prudent," a Brookings scholar tells the Des Moines Register.

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The NAACP and same-sex marriage

A Huffington Post piece explores the conflict in the NAACP over same-sex marriage, which pits deep-seated, religiously based homophobia against the progressive civil rights views of such respected leaders as Julian Bond.  Includes links to a powerful speech by Bond and a CNN interview with NAACP head Banjamin Jealous.

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Iraq war vet turned congressman mounts campaign to repeal DADT

Rep. Patrick Murphy, an Iraq war veteran and Democratic member of Congress from Pennsylvania, says it is time to end the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.  "We can not afford to wait any longer" for the policy's repeal, Murphy said in a recent appearance at the National Press Club in Washington. "Now is the time to change this, when our military is stretched so thin" with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Prof is waging a one-man battle against Wisconsin's anti-marriage law

Professor Bill McConkey, a political science and communications professor at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and father of a lesbian daughter, is the driving force behind a pending challenge to Wisconsin's constitutional ban on gay marriage that will be heard this fall by the state's supreme court.  The Madison, WI Capital Times has a nice profile.  I served on a panel with Professor McConkey last month in Milwaukee for the American Constitution Society.  He's funny, powerful, charismatic, and utterly committed on this issue

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Bill Clinton supports same-sex marriage

The former president, who signed the Defense of Marriage Act, now says he is “basically in support” of gay marriage.

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Massachusetts sues feds over DOMA

In the latest federal lawsuit to challenge the Defense of Marriage Act, the State of Massachusetts claims that Section 3 of DOMA, which decrees that the federal government will not recognize any same-sex marriage, exceeds Congress' authority and interferes with the state's sovereign authority to regulate the marital status of its residents.  Attorney General Martha Coakley's statement is available here.  The complaint filed in federal court is available here.

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Prof. Carlos Ball on 4 reasons for hope about Obama and gay rights

In a Huffington Post column, Rutgers law professor Carlos Ball considers the Obama administration's missteps and failures on gay rights and suggests some reasons for hope.  Among these are the fact that the next census will count legally married gay couples, and that the administration has appointed several high ranking openly gay officials. 

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Law profs analyze "state of the union" for same-sex couples

Law professors Joanna Grossman and Edward Stein begin a three-part series at Findlaw on what they call the  "state of the union" on the rights of same-sex couples in the United States.  In the first installment, they offer a brief history of the battle over the same-sex marriage -- from the first wave of cases in the 1970s in which the idea of same-sex marriage was broached and roundly rejected, through the most recent legislative and judicial developments that have made same-sex marriage a legal reality. In parts two and three, they will describe the current legal landscape for same-sex couples and the current state of the law regarding interstate recognition of marriages.

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Dehli High Court strikes down sodomy law

Our colleague Ruthann Robson at the Con Law Blog reports on the decision by the Dehli High Court striking down as unconstitutional a section of the India Penal Code criminalizing sodomy.  The decision is available here.

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